Having issues with H&R Block? You may have legal options.
Are you looking for a tax preparation service and you want to know is H&R Block worth it? You aren’t alone. Many people have questions about the customer service quality of a company especially when your money is involved and whether that company is trustworthy. To help you make an informed decision we’ve put together reviews and ratings for H&R Block from a variety of resources.
H&R Block is a tax preparation service. They provide a range of tax preparation services so that you can use their software and prepare everything online yourself or get different levels of help from the company. You can go into a physical office if you prefer and have a professional handle your taxes for you.
The two main types of services they offer include online filing and filing with the tax professional in an office.
Online filing is done, as the name suggests, online. With this you can use the software or you can do everything through an internet connection, upload your tax documents, fill out your information, review everything, and then sign it and H&R Block will prepare it and file it for you. You get notifications along the way for when it has been submitted and when it has been accepted at the state level and the federal level.
Filing with a tax professional can be done online where you take pictures of your tax documents and send them to the tax professional working for H&R Block, and they will do the same preparation of your taxes for you to sign, review, and then return. Alternatively you can find a physical office near you and have a meeting where the same things are done just in person.
With either of these, there are four costs for the four respective versions:
The Better Business Bureau has given the company an A+ rating because it is an accredited company that has been in operation for 64 years successfully. But this rating has to do with the company itself and not the customer reviews. Where customer reviews are concerned, the Better Business Bureau has given them one out of five stars.
Consumer Affairs has given them 2.5 out of 5 stars, a rating based primarily on the fact that it ends up costing you more than if you were to file on your own with all of the hidden costs that customers face midway through the process.
Getting help in person is quite positive an experience for most customers. One customer explained that they had been using H&R Block for 20 years and “the customer service, preparation times are great and filing is very fast, being mostly electronic.”
The ability to find an H&R local office and get help from a tax professional who will review your information is very easy. They also have an online assist program where you can have a tax professional look through your information and double-check it and give you live chat functions if you are confused but this does come at an extra cost, something that isn’t revealed until you go to use the service which not all customers appreciate.
One big customer complaint has to do with the pricing structure. H&R Block advertises the free filing of taxes and they do the same type of advertisement year after year. But the problem is, not everybody gets to file for free and they make every customer start with the same free version which is the most basic form of filing. But if you have to file anything more complicated, if you are self-employed or have any type of property, dependents, investments, or anything out of the ordinary the price goes up for filing and it’s not something that’s clearly explained until you are near the end of the process.
One customer explained, “I decided not to file my taxes with H&R block even after paying the fee for a Premium filing. I literally sat on hold for four hours to have a simple question answered, and they still could not put me in front of a tax specialist to handle it. After being put on hold multiple times, I had to ask for a manager, and then wait on hold for another 30 minutes. They told me a tax specialist would need to review my situation and that it would cost an additional $50-$100 more.”
Some of the more serious complaints have to do with errors on taxes. H&R Block, like all tax preparation services, is not legally responsible for any mistakes they make. So customers who have had issues like the incorrect spelling of their name on their tax returns as prepared by H&R Block, are facing things like fines, delayed stimulus checks, and serious IRS penalties but they are unable to get anyone to help. One such customer noted, “I created a case and still no one is helping me. I can’t even survive anymore.”
Unfortunately this error of misspelled names that results in late payments, interest fees, and stimulus checks being held onto is too common. One customer noted, “A check of the paperwork showed she spelled my name wrong on all the forms. I called the office and was told that the IRS and state rejected my returns.”
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